


Change

by Qwerty_Hargreeves_25



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Ben doesn't technically die, Death, Gen, Gore, Heavy Angst, Horror, Vampire AU, turning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-18 18:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20317756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qwerty_Hargreeves_25/pseuds/Qwerty_Hargreeves_25
Summary: He thought.. He thought he had known hunger before. The days without food, part of their so called training. And deeper, beyond the physical, the hunger, the yawning, vast emptiness of hunger that was the Horror, pulsing just beneath his own skin.





	Change

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this is angsty af.

What came next. 

The big secret. The one that people asked him, in hushed voices late at night. When the darkness had stretched, so long and deep that they felt safe hidden in its velvety depths, never really realizing that the morning sun was on its way to catch them all.

The secret was that there wasn't a secret. He was just as confused as anyone else. 

But people didn't like that. They wanted it to be a secret. They wanted there to be a cheat code, some small simple things they could do to get The Good Ending. 

Whatever they thought that the good ending would be. 

Money? Fame? Or maybe something a little harder to achieve. A little rougher around the edges. Heaven. A life of ease and luxury without the inherent ennui those things brought with them. 

It wasn't that simple. It never had been. 

Ben had died, once.

§§§

Beh died, and he saw nothing. He saw the darkness close in around him and he _drowned _in it. 

There was no light. 

There was nothing. An endless stretch of nothing. 

He wasn't scared. 

To be scared, you had to exist. And if he existed then it wouldn't be nothing, it would be something. 

Ben, he wasn't sure if he wanted to be something. _Someone_. 

Being someone… Being someone was painful. It was work, and it was _hard_. 

His thoughts- slow and languid. Not even a ripple, consciousness as low as a tide, and yet each moment encapsulated, completely separated from every other. 

The first thing, the very first thing that he was aware of, was a voice in his ear.

And then he had an ear. He had an ear and he had a head for it to go on. He could feel his fingers. His toes inside of his shoes as he flexed the muscles there.

He opened his mouth and he _screamed_. 

He screamed into the void but there was nothing. Nothing there to catch the vibrations and make sound. Darkness. Empty. Darker than dark. 

But if there was no sound, how was there a voice? 

Again. Just behind him and to the left. A voice. A sound he couldn't identify. 

He had a left, now. Suddenly there was space, a cavern of darkness but a cavern all the same. He could feel it. The awareness. The feeling of presence, of existence that he couldn't explain. And direction mattered. He had a left and a right, a forward, a back. 

And if it was a cavern, if it was a space, then it had an edge. 

Ben _ran._ He didn't remember beginning to run but then he was already running- as fast as he could go- towards the voice, the broken noises that only got clearer. 

"Ben, Ben, Benny. Oh God Ben."

"I'm coming!" Ben shouted, and this time the words exploded around him, prismatic. Reflecting sparks of light bright enough to burn. 

He could see the wall.

He could see the wall, and he was _right there_ and he was still running.

He was running, and he was going to hit it, and he threw his arms up, instinctively protecting his face as he plowed through what appeared to be solid rock. 

It popped like a bubble. 

Or maybe it didn't pop. Maybe he was just sliding through it, between all the bits and pieces that made it a wall. Unexpected warmth, a sparkling waterfall of sensation cascaded against his skin. 

And then he was through- he was through, he was out, he had made it. 

The glass bit into the palm of his skin. 

He looked up, and Klaus smiled at him, a wobbly, painful smile, beautiful through the tears. 

Ben didn't see the blood. Not for long moments. 

Not the blood staining the front of his clothes. Not the blood dripping from the corner of Klaus’s mouth, glinting from the tip of one inhumanly long incisor. 

No. 

At first, all he could see was Klaus. Beautiful. 

And then the pain started. Low in his belly. And he gasped, arching backwards, expecting to see tentacles come bursting out. 

But he didn't see tentacles. 

What he did see was the ripped remains of his blood stained uniform. What he did see was she skin, slowly and agonizingly knitting itself back together. What he did see was Klaus, tears dripping down his face as he sobbed into his own fist. 

"I'm sorry Ben, I'm sorry. I had to. I couldn't let you die. I couldn't."

But Ben couldn't answer, the feeling of his bones shifting in place, twisting and fusing into their proper shapes. 

What happened? 

How had he gotten so broken? 

_How had he survived it? _

And all the time, the low sobs of Klaus, curled in on himself as he apologized. 

And Ben felt it. He felt the hunger, sweeping over him like a tidal wave, dragging him under. 

He thought.. He thought he had known hunger before. 

The days without food, part of their so called training. And deeper, beyond the physical, the hunger, the yawning fast emptiness of hunger that was the Horror, pulsing just beneath his own skin. 

But this. This was something new again. 

This was a hunger that wasn't physical, that wasn't separated by even a thin layer of consciousness. This was all of that times ten, wrapped in a thick layer of _pain_ and breathlessness and, and, and....

When Ben came back to himself, he was bent over the still form of a pretty blonde woman in heels and a tasteful grey suit. The cornflower blue of her blouse was stained crimson, and he could taste the coppery tang of blood on his lips. 

He recognized her. She was one of the survivors. Luther had tackled the gunman just as he had lifted the rifle towards her. 

But. 

But she didn't look like much of a survivor right now. 

Right now, she looked very, very dead. Her eyes, that same cornflower blue staring lifelessly, accusingly, into his own. 

"Oh God." Ben choked out, backing away, turning his head. But he couldn't stop. He couldn't stop seeing the wide accusation of that stare. The eyes that practically screamed 'I should have lived.'

Ben gagged, heaving as he scrambled across the hard floor, slick beneath his palms. He opened his eyes and saw red, saw the fallen bodies. 

For a moment. Only a moment. 

And then nothing. Warm cotton and familiar scent as Klaus curled around him, blocking his sight. "Don't look," Klaus whispered shakily. "Don't look. Just. Trust me Ben. Please. Please don't look."

And some part of Ben was _screaming,_ wailing for him to push Klaus away, to see what he had done- _him _not the monster sharing his body- but him with his own teeth and fingers. 

But the rest of him. 

The rest of him had curled, burrowing into the safe space at the bottom of Klaus's neck, and allowed himself to be held.

Safe. 

Though from what, he didn't want to know. 

**Author's Note:**

> My poor babies. I love them, really.
> 
> Please review! I need reviews like fish need water, humans need air, and Ben needs blood.


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